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Date: Mon, 7 Apr 2003 13:49:02 -0700
From: Andrew Morton <akpm@digeo.com>
To: Burton Windle <bwindle@fint.org>
Cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [2.5] Kernel won't release cache unless pushed
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Burton Windle <bwindle@fint.org> wrote:
>
> Hello. In both the 2.5 and 2.4 kernel series, if I do an 'ls -lR' on a
> directory with several gigs of data, the kernel will cache all of the
> metadata (in dentry_cache, I think), which is fine (we don't want ram to
> go to waste).
> 
> However, large malloc's then fail, returning ENOMEM, because the kernel
> won't give up the memory.

Does

	echo 1  > /proc/sys/vm/overcommit_memory

fix it?

There's something borked in the overcommit crystal ball gazing.  It's on
my todo list somewhere.